AdventureWriter & The Quill

[Garry]

For anyone that's genuinely interested in creating new adventures for the Atari 8-bit, you can certainly use AdventureWriter, but there are more modern alternatives available nowadays. These allow you to create an adventure on your Linux, Mac or Windows PC and deploy to a wide range of 8- and 16-bit platforms, including the Atari 8-bit and Atari ST.

 

First off, there's DAAD. This is a souped up version of PAWS, which is itself a souped up version of The Quill/AdventureWriter. Unfortunately, this only supports Atari ST at the moment. See https://github.com/daad-adventure-writer/daad.

 

Then there's PunyInform. This is a fine-tuned version of the standard Inform 6 library that makes it really easy to create Infocom-like games for a wide range of platforms, including the Atari 8-bit and Atari ST. It does have a steep learning curve, but it's worth the effort. I'm creating my first PunyInform game for PunyJam #1. The jam page has links to the library and there is now a PunyInform Discord server. Even if you're not interested in creating your own game, you may want to keep an eye on the jam for new games to play.

 

If you just want to create adventures to play in a browser, then you should try Adventuron. See this topic for many Adventuron links, see the Adventuron games on my itch.io home page to see the sort of games you can create or play and rate the Text Adventure Literacy Jam submissions.

 

For more on these and many, many other authoring systems, playing hints and tips, reviews, authoring questions and answers, competitions and more, see the intfiction forum.

[thank you]

Hi Garry

 

I am Seeker of Magic.  I am Outside Cave.  I'm carrying an apple, a dry branch, a sharp knife.  I see an ugly troll scratching its crutch.

 

I'm terrible at these games-- maybe a hint, do I have what I need and am I in the right place?  Also is 'crutch' a misspelling or is that an Australia thing?

 

thank you

[Garry]

'Crutch' is the correct spelling. Maybe it's an Aussie thing. Do you spell it as 'crotch'?

 

As you have a knife, try cutting the apple.

[StickJock]

14 hours ago, thank you said:

I'm carrying an apple, a dry branch, a sharp knife.

16 minutes ago, Garry said:

As you have a knife, try cutting the apple.

My first thought with the inventory above was to sharpen the branch with the knife. Especially with an itchy troll nearby!

Hmm.  I wonder what that says about me?  ?

 

 

[Garry]

5 hours ago, StickJock said:

My first thought with the inventory above was to sharpen the branch with the knife. Especially with an itchy troll nearby!

Hmm.  I wonder what that says about me?  ?

 

 

You can actually do that, or at least try, and you'll get a sensible response.

[thank you]

That's why I'm garbage at these games-- I swear I tried everything.  But I had only done PEEL APPLE and it suggested I shouldn't do that if I was going to eat it, so I ate it.  Then I went and ate 10 more and as luck would have it no giant worms in any of them

 

And yes in the US we have crotches...  here a crutch is the thing you stick under your arm so you can get around with a broken foot.  But I'm going to start using crutch your way.

[Garry]

I just spent a few minutes looking up the difference between crutch and crotch (as in the groin, not the other usage). What fun. It looks like crutch is predominantly UK English, whereas crotch is American. Geez, you learn a lot when you write adventures. My current game in progress has a pirate theme, so I've been researching things like rum, rowboats, sailing ships and lighthouses during the golden age of piracy.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Garry

[www.atarimania.com]

I just realized our site may have been wrong all along... 

 

Could somebody confirm CodeWriter only released two adventure sets in The Casebook of Hemlock Soames series with no #2? So you'd just have:

_ The Casebook of Hemlock Soames (not #1 as we have it on Atarimania)

_ The Casebook of Hemlock Soames #3

 

I was confused by the titles but the first disk actually has two distinct adventures so #3 would be the third (divided in two parts).

 

 

 

 

[_The Doctor__]

So you are thinking it should read,

_ The Casebook of Hemlock Soames #1 & 2

_ The Casebook of Hemlock Soames #3

[www.atarimania.com]

Yes, the title of the first program is just The Casebook of Hemlock Soames and it has two distinct adventures on the disk. 

 

The Casebook of Hemlock Soames #3 - as it appears on the box - would be the third adventure (in two parts), meaning no Hemlock Soames #2 was ever sold.

[devwebcl]

This is a cool site about it

 

https://mocagh.org/loadpage.php?query=[publisher]CodeWriter

[www.atarimania.com]

I think we can close this case. The catalog numbers are HS-200 and HS-201 for the two programs we have so The Casebook of Hemlock Soames #2 very likely doesn't exist.

[_The Doctor__]

You aren't listening,

CaseBooks 1&2 are the first set.

Casebook 3 is a two phase discovery and investigation.

They are all present.

 

Read the manual or play the games.

First two are complete cases and solutions in each.

the 3 rd one you observe and notate in the first half then load the second half to investigate and solve

[+DjayBee]

12 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

You aren't listening,

You aren't reading, 😎

CaseBooks 1&2 are parts of the first release.

Casebook 3 is the second release.

They are all present but there is no release named #2.

[www.atarimania.com]

3 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

You aren't listening,

CaseBooks 1&2 are the first set.

Casebook 3 is a two phase discovery and investigation.

They are all present.

 

Read the manual or play the games.

First two are complete cases and solutions in each.

the 3 rd one you observe and notate in the first half then load the second half to investigate and solve

Why are you yapping like that? You're clearly the one not paying attention here as I wrote exactly the same thing. 

[_The Doctor__]

13 hours ago, www.atarimania.com said:

I think we can close this case. The catalog numbers are HS-200 and HS-201 for the two programs we have so The Casebook of Hemlock Soames #2 very likely doesn't exist.

Here you see what I am talking about, but you want to say it's about release numbers now.

Furthermore you say casebook #2 very likely does not exist in this very message!

Casebook #2 is INCLUDED in release #1

14 hours ago, www.atarimania.com said:

The Casebook of Hemlock Soames #3 - as it appears on the box - would be the third adventure (in two parts), meaning no Hemlock Soames #2 was ever sold.

Hemlock Soames Casebook #1 and Hemlock Soames Casebook #2 were sold together in release #1. Casebook #3 is release #2

It is 3 Casebooks.

I never said they sold them separately, so that should not be implied. I hope that makes it more than clear, and you can see exactly what I responded to.

Pretty clear it is Casebook 1 & Casebook 2 purchased together.

Casebook 2 clearly exists

There are 3 programs with the 3rd program additionally split into 2 parts

 

Perhaps it should read like this in the database and you could put release info in the notes

The Casebook of Hemlock Soames Casebooks 1 & 2

The Casebook of Hemlock Soames Casebook 3

Edited August 31, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[www.atarimania.com]

I f***ing know that. From the very start, I was referring to the title of the program as it was sold, hence why I used bold characters. There is no official release called The Casebook of Hemlock Soames #2 commercialized by itself, it jumps straight to The Case of Hemlock Soames #3 because it is the third adventure and the first two were bundled on the first disk. I never said otherwise.

 

Are you drunk? This is a serious question.

 

 

 

[_The Doctor__]

This is how it appears on the box and the front give the names of the individual adventures

 

The is no release saying on the front title area of the box-  The Casebook of Hemlock Soames #1 either.

If you know everything then what is all this about in the first place?

It appears on the Box in two different ways.

One as the individual adventure names and one as above.

 

Bottom line either you will have it on your site as the above

The Casebook of Hemlock Soames 1 & 2

or you will have to write out both adventure names as the whole title

no one ever said it was released separately, but the box does have it just as pictured. It's commercially sold and that's how it appears.

The Disk, The Box and the Menu all say

The Casebook of Hemlock Soames 1 & 2

                                                  or I & II

 

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[www.atarimania.com]

"Old age is a shipwreck" as we say here.